ON PRONOUNS, CLITIC DOUBLING, AND ARGUMENT ELLIPSIS: ARGUMENT ELLIPSIS AS PREDICATE ELLIPSIS

Abstract

The paper examines certain constructions where clitics exceptionally license sloppy readings and argues that such constructions involve a clitic doubling structure where the double, which is responsible for the sloppy reading, undergoes argument ellipsis. Typological consequences of the proposed analysis are also discussed. Additionally, a number of conclusions are reached regarding the nature of clitic doubling and especially argument ellipsis, for which a new semantically-based analysis is proposed where argument ellipsis is defined in terms of its semantic type and implemented in terms of LF copying. The analysis also considerably broadens the scope of the phenomenon, eliminating the need for independent parameterization regarding the availability of argument ellipsis across languages. The paper also addresses the more general issue of whether certain interpretations of nominal expressions are derived via type-shifting triggered by null heads present in the syntax, or post-syntactically, without corresponding syntactic structure.